Dying Days: The Daughter of Poseidon
by thelonelymuggle
Summary: "...it must've been a lot more exciting than anything that could possibly happen in Chewsville, Maryland. At least, that's what I'd thought." This is the story of Isabella Brookes, thrown into a full blown war between Gods and Titans.


**Disclaimer: **Do I own Percy Jackson and the Olympians? No. I do not.

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You know that feeling? That feeling of hopelessness you get in the pit of your stomach when you've reached a dead end and you're only inches away from an untimely death? Yeah, I've had that feeling plenty of times. You get used to it I suppose, being a half-blood and all.

I quite liked the idea of being different, in the beginning. But, that was before things took a turn for the incredibly dangerous. My life was always somewhat quiet. Satisfactory, but quiet. My mom, Kathleen, wanted a simple life away from San Francisco where she'd grown up. So, when I turned five my mom, my stepdad Greg, and I packed up and headed east settling in a small town called Chewsville in Maryland. I don't remember much of my life back in California, but I know it must've been a lot more exciting than anything that could possibly happen in Chewsville, Maryland.

At least, that's what I'd thought.

**September 3****rd**

Usually kids my age would be having a boat load of mixed emotions right now. With it being the first day back from winter break and all, you're either dreading it like a death sentence of some sort or pee-your-pants excited. I've got neutral feelings about the first day of 8th grade. I mean, I wouldn't mind staying home and curling up to good book, but I'm not terrified of first days. It's only middle school.

"Do you have your lunch?"

"Yes, mom," I said.

"How about your reading glasses?" she asked.

I sighed, "Yeah, I've got everything."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

She sighed and gave me one of those _just-trying-to-help _looks that I ignored. Then she gave me the usual spiel about trying my absolute hardest and always giving a 110 percent because I wasn't like the other kids. I didn't think I was _that_ different from everyone else. I'd been diagnosed with dyslexia and ADHD for as long as I can remember. It just took me a little longer to read and made it a bit hard to sit still during history class. It was a lot worse when I was younger, but I've learned to control my urge to run around the classroom every chance I get. Sort of.

I stepped out of my mom's deep green Volk's Wagon and marched up the front steps of the brick building. It was an old building, built sometime in the late 1940s. It was originally supposed to be a high school, but I suppose they decided to turn it into a middle school since there were already so many other high schools in the same area. Chewsville already has four high schools, two middle schools, and one elementary which is a bit much considering the fact that this town only has, like, a hundred residents. It looked sort of the way you'd expect a stereotypical "hell on earth" type of middle school to look. With its deep, red brick and green ivy lining almost every inch of the place. Yeah, that's definitely hell on earth for you.

I didn't have very high expectations for the type of day I was going to have that day, but I didn't necessarily have low expectations either. I had biology that morning which would've gone just fine if Evan hadn't been there.

"Isabella!" he called as soon as I'd stepped foot in the classroom. I mentally groaned.

"Hi, Evan," I mumbled as I took my usual seat directly at the front of the classroom.

Now before you go assuming things, I don't hate Evan. He'd only had a crush on me since the sixth grade and it'd been kind of cute at first. Then it started getting weird. Now it was just plain creepy. I'll never know what I could've possibly done that would make him so taken with me. I mean, honestly, I might have been hallucinating or maybe it was my ADHD kicking in, but I'm almost positive I'd seen him lurking around my house over summer break. It was hard to miss his long, lanky figure and sandy fringe that he always kept covered with a black ski cap. I'd tried my best to pretend as though I'd never seen him sulking in front of my house, but it was harder to avoid him in school than it was from the safety of my own home.

Evan immediately moved his things up towards the front of the room. I sighed and opened my textbook to a random page and pretended to be interested in whatever the heck Epithelial cells were. But, unfortunately that didn't stop him.

"How was your summer?" he asked.

"Fine," I said shortly without looking up.

"Anything interesting happen?" he asked eagerly.

I flipped the page. "Not really."

More students began filling into the classroom including Andy Nicholson, a broad shouldered, dark haired kid who'd been held back a few years. He harassed a few of the girls at the back of the room who did nothing but pass notes and giggle at everything. Then he made his way up front and pushed Evan out of his seat so that he sprawled out clumsily on the tile floor. When I got up to help him he shot me a rude hand gesture which I had no problem returning.

Mrs. Nemur didn't seem to notice me or Evan as she swept into the classroom telling everyone to open their textbooks to page 12. I quickly scrambled into my seat and tried to comb my auburn hair, which was now a tangled mess, with my fingers. That, of course only made it worse. And now my fringe was sticking up in all sorts of places.

We made it through the first fifteen minutes of class with nothing out of the ordinary. I took notes, Nicholson made faces and rude hand gestures at Mrs. Nemur behind her back, Charlie Ecclestein fixed his hat so that it was covering his eyes and dozed off, and Evan stared at me for who knows how long.

Then, things got weird.

Mrs. Nemur excused herself from class and came back about five minutes later announcing that we'd all been given a free recess. We didn't normally get recess in the 8th grade, but no one seemed to be complaining. We began filing out of the classroom as orderly as a bunch of 8th grades can get, which is basically three students out the door at a time. When I got to the door, however, Mrs. Nemur gave me stern look and stopped me in my tracks.

"Isabella Brookes, are you not?" she asked me.

"Er…yes?"

She smiled and flashed a set of perfectly white teeth underneath blood, red lipstick. "We have much to discuss, young lady," she said in a sickly sweet tone that made my skin crawl. "If you want to be on the honor roll this year, I suggest you stay behind."

"But, it's the first day of school…isn't it a little early to be discussing honor roll?" I asked.

"Yes, but you see, we're introducing a new system this year," she explained. "We're putting students on the honor roll list at the _beginning _of the year now instead of at the end in order to improve academic standards earlier on."

I must've looked confused because she continued, "We believe that if you're already on the honor roll, you'll be able to work towards staying on the honor roll, which is even harder than making it on the list in the first place."

"Oh," I said. "Oh, Okay." Though I was still uncertain.

Now, I know what you're thinking. I should've been smart enough to distinguish this as some sort of trap to get me alone. But, unfortunately I stayed behind anyways and as soon as the last student left, something I'll never forget happened.

Mrs. Nemur wasn't Mrs. Nemur anymore. I mean, she was, but she wasn't. She'd completely transformed all except for her face. It was still the same pale face with ice blonde hair tied up into a tight bun, bright purple eye shadow, and red lipstick. But her neck had grown at least ten inches, her eyes were now yellow slits and her legs were no longer legs. They were two green serpent tails that had somehow sprouted from her waist. I gasped and backed into a desk that toppled over. A sound escaped from Mrs. Nemur that sounded like a mix between hiss and a sneer. Basically, she snissed at me and advanced forward. I looked around for some sort of weapon, but all I could come up with on short notice was the jar full of pencils on Mrs. Nemur's desk. She whipped around so quickly I didn't even realize what had happened at first, but her tail had hit me with a hard blow to the stomach and sent me flying backwards into the nearest wall.

I thought I was going to black out as I fought to keep my eyelids from fluttering shut but something, some sort of instinct I suppose, told my legs to stand up. Once I was back on my feet, however, I had to fight hard to stay up. Mrs. Nemur charged at me again but this time I tumbled out of the way before she could get a good hit in. She hissed in rage as her tail smashed a few desks.

I dove towards the jar of pencils and threw one after another at her, but they simply bounced off of her scaly skin. She slithered towards me at top speed and I thought I was a goner. But, then she hissed and slithered back against the wall. I looked around and saw something that shocked me out of my wits. Standing in the doorway was Evan holding what looked like a bronze shield. He waved it at Mrs. Nemur and she went wild, knocking desks and anything in her path sending them flying in our direction. Evan ran over and grabbed my arm pulling me with him behind Mrs. Nemur's desk.

"You okay?" he asked.

"What was that—that _thing_?" I yelled.

"Keep your voice down," said Evan calmly. I wondered how on earth he was so calm about this whole thing.

"Are you going to explain to me what the heck is going on?" I asked, lowering my voice.

"We don't have time," he said simply. After all those times he'd tried to seize my attention, now_ I_ was the one being ignored. I wasn't very happy to say the least.

"Tell me what's going on," I demanded. He bluntly ignored this and stuck his head around the side of the desk. He then turned towards me, put a finger to his lips, and motioned me to follow him. I reluctantly crawled after him out from under the desk and silently gasped at what I saw. The entire room looked as though it had been through a nuclear bomb explosion. Windows were shattered, walls were completely demolished, and any sign that this had once been an 8th grade science classroom had been destroyed.

"Holy shi—" I was cut across by Evan's hand slapping firmly over my mouth. He gave me a firm look and I couldn't believe he was harassing me for cursing at a time like this, but then he looked up at the ceiling and I followed his gaze. It took me a moment to actually comprehend what I was looking at. Birds. Dozens and dozens of birds all nesting on the ceiling. They were normal birds, apart from the fact that their beaks looked as though they were made from bronze and their feathers almost looked like metallic. They also seemed to be asleep, unmoving, and certainly not paying any attention to us. I looked back at Evan with a questioning look in my eyes.

"They must've scared her off," he whispered. "Or killed her," he added as an afterthought. Then, he motioned toward the gaping hole in the wall and quietly made my way towards it with him tip toeing behind me. We almost made it out too. Almost.

Okay, look, I'm not usually clumsy. But if you'd gone through everything I'd been through that day, your balance would probably be a little out of wack too. As we were climbing out of the hole I lost balance and fell backward into Evan sending us both tumbling down onto a desk. The reaction was instantaneous. As if on cue each and every bird awoke to our cries of pain. Evan cursed something inaudible under his breath and I thought I heard a faint rumble from up above.

Now, I'm not usually a religious person, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Those bird's beaks were pointed directly at us, ready to strike at any moment. We'd awakened them from their ominous slumber and they looked thoroughly pissed off about it. So I began to pray. I'm not even sure who my prayer was targeted towards. God, Zeus, Buddha—whoever, I wasn't too picky. I waited and…nothing. Those birds shot from the ceiling at lightning speed. Evan and I rolled out of the way just in time and the birds made contact with tile floor, but that only seemed to make them angrier. We stumbled out of the room as quickly as we could and took off down the empty hallway. I knew the birds were right behind us but I didn't dare look back. I knew I'd die sooner or later, but I was hoping to die of old age or some kind of rare disease. But death by angry birds (no pun intended)? Not really what I'd planned to see engraved on my tombstone.

We sped into the cafeteria and dove underneath the lunch tables. I could hear a faint humming noise coming from outside and kept my fingers crossed that they wouldn't find a way in.

"Now will you—tell me what's going on?" I gasped, out of breath and clutching the stitch in my side.

"They've come for you," he muttered more to himself than to me. "It took them thirteen years, but they've finally come for you."

I was a bit confused to say the least. If not _a lot_ scared out-of-my-mind.

"Evan, who's coming for me?" I asked.

He looked at me wearily for a moment, sighed, then pulled what looked like a business card out of his pocket. He handed it to me.

_Evan Thorn_

_Keeper_

_Half-Blood Hill_

_Long Island, New York_

_(800) 009-0009_

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked, now officially beginning to get annoyed. Why he couldn't just give me a straight answer was beyond me.

"I can't tell you now," he said curtly.

Suddenly I got angry. I didn't know what was going on. I didn't know how these creatures existed either. But, I knew for a fact that my life was in danger and I wanted to know why.

"Why? Why can't you tell me?" I demanded.

The cafeteria doors burst open.

"That's why," Evan said, grabbing his bronze shield and crawling out from underneath the lunch table.

I had a feeling that those birds hadn't actually killed Mrs. Nemur. For some reason this made me feel guilty about letting Evan go out there and try to fight her off. If he couldn't even stand up to Nicholson every once in a while, how could he possibly stand up to a vicious, man eating snake-lady?

It took all the nerve that I could possibly muster but I crawled out from underneath the table only to find, not only Mrs. Nemur, but a boy who looked about my age with a bronze sword pointed directly at Evan's neck.

"Where is she?" he demanded, his voice shaking slightly.

Evan hesitated. "She—she's not here."

"Liar!" the boy spat. "Now, tell me where she is our I'll run you through with this sword!"

"I don't know, I swear!"

The boy pulled his sword back with all his might and swung forward.

"No!" I yelled as I leapt forward. He stopped mid swing and all eyes turned towards me.

"What are you doing?" said Evan, staring mortified.

"Saving your life, what does it look like I'm doing?" I told him.

I stepped in between him and the boy and crossed my arms over my chest. Evan made a weird sound that sounded like a cross between a gasp and a sob, while Mrs. Nemur hissed and the boy's expression remained cold and unmoving.

I'm not positive what happened next, but I do remember the boy saying something, in a language that I couldn't understand, to Mrs. Nemur. She hissed some more and before I could react the boy side stepped and Mrs. Nemur's tail whipped around so quickly that she must've thrown me all the way to the other side of the cafeteria. I was pretty sure that Evan had gotten away but I wasn't positive. The last thought that crossed my mind was how on earth I would ever be able to explain this to Mom and Greg, but little did I know I wouldn't have to. It would be weeks before I saw them again, anyways.

And let's just say that this little encounter was only the beginning of my dangerous journey into finding out just how different I really was from most people. Because the real danger didn't start until after I blacked out on my first day of the 8th grade. Unfortunately.

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**To be quite honest with you I wasn't all that thrilled with this first chapter. I rewrote it about a million times and each time it kept getting shorter and shorter. It is a little short and rushed for my taste but first chapters are usually shorter than later chapters anyhow. Please leave constructive criticism! It's kind of what I live for since it, you know, makes me a better writer. **

_**Songs that inspired this chapter.**_

_I'll Be Yours—Those Dancing Days_

_Come As You Are—Nirvana_

_Boy—Lights On_

_Midnight City—M83_


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